So, um....yeah.

Guess what? I finished my stained glass window of the Eiffel Tower. I feel like I kind of lost my motivation there towards the end so I'm not sure that it turned out as great as it could have been. But here it is anyway...

...and once again, the picture doesn't really show the colors very well. But you get the point.

Now I need to find where I left my motivation so that I can start on another project. I am going to get back on track and make a lamp for my brother and sister-in-law...that I promised them over a year ago. Oops. :)

Bonjour, Paris!

I apologize if that title was a bit misleading...No, I am not in Paris. I really wish I was, but alas! I have school and work and pretty much no money. So...(sigh)... here I sit on a cold, rainy/snowy night in January, typing away at my computer. Pretty lame, I know. On a brighter, more random note, that title makes me want to watch "Funny Face" with Audrey Hepburn really badly. If you have never seen it I highly recommend it. I especially love the part where she dances in that cafe! It is so funny! It makes me laugh just thinking of it.

Anyway, the point of this post is to give an update (as promised) on my stained glass window. This is the Eiffel Tower window that I started waaaaay back in the summer. So here it is:





It's hard to see the colors without any light shining through it, but right now I only have all the individual pieces finished. Before I can stand it up I will have to foil them and then solder it all together. You can still get an idea of what it will look like though.

Still Alive...

I thought I would put out a message to the blogosphere saying that I am still here. I have managed to survive this crazy, stressful summer. In accomplishing that I have sadly neglected my art, and consequently my blog.

I have one more week of freedom before school starts up again and hope to make some progress on the Eiffel Tower window and post some pictures.

My time will be sparse once school starts, but I hope to find a little time each week for my art. My goal is to have a couple more projects done before the end of the year, but as we learned in "The Story of the Lamp," I can sometimes be impractical.

In the meantime, here are some beautiful pictures from oh so long ago, at the beginning of summer, when life was carefree!

The Palace of Fine Arts

Enormous and beautiful

Nearing the Golden Gate Bridge

Fort Point

"The Painted Ladies" at Alamo Square

Going to Prison (Alcatraz)

The view from prison

San Francisco from Alcatraz (So close, yet still so far)

The Golden Gate Bridge while leaving Alcatraz

Lombard St. "The Crookedest Street" (could also be "The Steepest Street")

I don't know why, but this makes me think of the Yellow Brick Road...only it's red

Entrance to Chinatown

Chinatown

Saying goodbye to San Francisco :(

Decisions, Decisions

It is always a hard thing to figure out what I want to do next as a project. There are still some people that I need to make things for, but I kind of want to do something simple and just for fun in between. As kind of a break.

I really love the Eiffel Tower. I hope that someday I will eventually get a chance to go to France. I've had the thought of doing a stained glass window with an Eiffel Tower in it for a very long time. I just couldn't seem to figure out how to do it. There is just too much detail. I finally decided to go for it. I could at least sketch something and see if I thought it would work. So... that is what I did.

I simplified it quite a bit. And then of course I love trees and nature, so I added a tree in the corner. Also, it will add a little bit more color to it.

So that is what I'm thinking of doing... a window of the above sketch. I have also wanted to learn to paint for a long time and have been struggling with whether I should do that right now or make the stained glass window. I love stained glass and want to continue doing it, but I don't know that I could manage both at the same time with school, work and the rest of my life. I have been putting off learning to paint for a long time though....

....What the heck! I might just do both at the same time. That certainly beats having to decide between one or the other.

Cardinal in Winter

Here is the second window I made. I created the pattern myself from a picture.

I love the purple sky in the background. It makes me think of dark, stormy days in the fall or winter. I also love the three golden leaves still clinging to the tree and the texture of the glass I used for the branches.

Red Rock Landscape

This is the first stained glass window that I ever made. I used a pattern, but I think it turned out pretty good for my first one.

The colors are a bit on the extreme side, but I like it that way.

It was while making this that I realized I love making stained glass windows and wanted to continue making them!

Fall Aspen Trees

I am still working on trying to repair the lampshade that I previously posted about. However, in the meantime I thought I would show some of my past work.

This is a picture of my third stained glass window, but the first one that I completely designed myself. I came up with the idea, drew the pattern, and then made the window. It took me what seemed like FOREVER to finish this with school and work and the many, many small pieces involved.

I have always loved going to the mountains to see the beautiful aspen trees in the fall. No matter how many times I do, I never get tired of the beauty of them. The bright yellow (and sometimes pink...weird, I know) is absolutely amazing. It never ceases to surprise me that something in nature could be so bright and colorful. And every year they seem to be brighter and more beautiful than they were in my memory.

I plan to continue the tradition of making as many trips as I can up into the mountains each fall, every year, for the rest of my life. But for the rest of the year, I love having this to look at.